The Captor, the Captive & the Captivated
by quakeapples
Summary: I didn't asked to be here, but this was a calling higher than anything in my pathetic life. No one truly knows if the USCSS Covenant was a one-way ticket to a malicious Hell or a way back to the Paradise we were once banished from. Unfortunately for me, there's only one way to find out: going. [OC/psychological/death/drama/action] Synopsis is hard, PLEASE read & enjoy
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.

 **The Captor, the Captive and the Captivated  
** Prologue

 _Year 2077, March 9  
_ _Bristol, United Kingdom_

"Have no fear, little one. No harm will ever come to you again, I promise."

Even though his blue eyes were of the same shade, his was so kind and gentle—despite the show of strength he'd just displayed only seconds ago. His soft, blonde hair felt like the centre of marshmallows against my face. He even smelt like vanilla and flour, like warm fluffy pancakes—just the way Mrs Gresham liked them.

In that moment though, it was like she didn't even own him, that she didn't exist in his programming and that this wasn't a mere glitch. He proved this to me by holding me close within his tender and warm arms—so real to the touch, so life-like, so _human_. He'd ignored everything else but me. I was all that mattered. As I was close enough, he reached out for my head and stroke my hair; his grasp was careful but unsure like he was approaching a wounded animal. Then he suddenly hummed a familiar tune—'You Are My Sunshine'.

It was my favourite. How could he have known?

"Will I… Will I really be alright?" my voice came out as raspy and weak. I was meek and scared, to say the least.

I couldn't help but tremble within his embrace. Yet as if to reassure me, he held onto me tighter and I knew I was safe in his arms. I could fall apart and he would keep me together.

"I promise you are alright now," he whispered. His voice – strangely enough – sounded as shaky as mine. Was I imagining it? His reaction, minute as it were, was like he wasn't fully aware of what had just happened or how to possibly compute it. He lost confidence only for brief moment of confusion before he hugged me closer—that was more for himself than me. "You will be fine! I won't let anyone hurt you now."

I was speechless, in disbelief.

"I should've gone to you sooner! And now…"

I didn't know what to say to that.

How could I have wanted that knowing that he belonged to someone else and that he has to put Mrs Gresham as a priority above all others? I had hoped that someone would find out about me and that rescue will come soon after, but never in another lifetime did I imagine it to have been at the hands of a _Synthetic_.

"I'm sorry if I've failed you, Aine."

That was impossible.

How could he be crying too?

I choked on my sobs.

But quietly I thought about something I'd heard from my nana* before…

"If one was able to _think_ , then one would be able to intend on performing one's desires; where there is an _intention_ on anything, there must be a _perspective_ and _perception_ behind that information or desire to want to do something. And, indeed, if gathering information from something so banal and grotesquely changeable as emotions is anything remotely similar to being human, then my dear child, Synthetics can _feel_. Then that means they are quite… _human_."

I didn't understand it when she said it back then, but at that moment, that was all I could really think about. The thought went through my mind over and over again, repeating intermittently with my sobbing and sniffling like a dance. Like the steps to a dance.

Till I finally reached out and returned his embrace as if it was the most natural thing to do.

It was somehow comforting to know that I had invoked something out of nothing, but maybe this was too overwhelming for a child to understand. But that was the harsh, inevitable reality of the moment that I must accept and it was wonderful. Confusing – _almost_ irritating – but wonderful.

I felt so welcomed.

Distant wailing of sirens soon joined his humming and before long, I was lulled into a calming sleep.

My eyes were closed, but my senses were conscious. I felt him scooping me up in his caged arms, carrying me away from that forsaken place and out into the open. The cold, Welsh valley breeze greeted us like a wave rolling down from a feverish thrill, but I was warm enough. It was the start of winter at nightfall and the cul-de-sac was quiet; I could hear distant murmurs from inside each of the houses and flats nearby, but no one came out to see what happened or how they could mitigate the trouble. No one wanted to find out if their suspicions all this time were true or that indeed their guilty inaction had now caused my misfortune.

The Synthetic stopped moving; he sat down on the staircase at the entrance of the apartment building where we lived together as neighbours—I knew where he was because of the smell of daises filling up the air. I knew this porch like the back of my hand. This was the one spot where I was free from my abuser. Perhaps it was because this is where I'd always seen the Synthetic looking back at me, as if he knew what was going on but was powerless to do anything about it.

Until now.

I instinctively clung harder onto his clothes. I didn't want to ever leave his side.

"Shh. It's alright, just rest… Think of nothing," his warm breath fanned my face as he placed an innocent kiss on my head and then the humming resumed.

Before I knew it, I drifted off into a half-awake state once more.

The sounds of sirens became much closer and louder in time; the blaring noise began to hurt my ears, but the Synthetic pushed me to his chest and covered my other ear. It didn't help quell the sound, but I didn't tell him.

People who arrived in those noisy cars begin to yell at him, but he assured them that he wasn't the one who had hurt m. Perhaps it was the way that I held onto him that made them believe him instantly. He told them about the real perpetrator who was lying inside my home, 'Flat 3A', and that he had knocked him out cold. They scurried into the building, but not after the Synthetic urged them to wait until I've left and spoke about trying to contain the 'victim's trauma'—I assumed it was for me.

More sirens resounded and more people – different from the one before – began to surround us. The Synthetic tried to hand me over to them, but I just wouldn't let go.

"It's okay, Aine. I promise they won't hurt you," he spoke gently all the time—it was hard for me to think he was more than capable to throw solid ceramic table tops with ease.

But I still didn't let go. I didn't want to.

The people tried to persuade me with candy, but I was adamant. So they just started checking up on me whilst I was being carried by the Synthetic.

I had even forgotten about the wound in my stomach—I'm too tired, too worn out and overloaded with so many other things to think much of it. I know it was still there thanks to these tiny, throbbing sensations and the slow oozing of blood. I began to feel paralysed and dizzy. But when they couldn't convince me to move at all, the Synthetic took a medicated patch from them and quickly placed it over the wound. I didn't even feel nor see him move. He then urged them to give me 'shots' and they rolled up my torn pyjamas sleeves to give me one up my arm—apparently, it was something milder than 'morphine'.

He told me it would help and it did; the pain faded away with the throbbing.

"Where's my Mummy? I want my Mummy," I whispered to the Synthetic.

He nods against my head. "Don't worry—she's on her way."

I stayed like that for a while further until I suddenly heard my mother's voice.

The car she was in hadn't even braked, but she leapt out to get me. I hadn't seen her in a long time and seeing her again seemed like a faraway dream, an evil mirage playing at my vulnerable mind. My hesitance to greet her was obvious to the Synthetic, but tirelessly he reassured me that I was awake and that that was really my mother.

I didn't remember her looking so dreary and tired. Her flowing, curly dark hair was a mess and her brown eyes were reddened—not only with tears for what had happened, but I suppose also after all the exhaustive effort that she'd spent during the time she'd been gone. She was always busy with work—it was all I had ever seen her do.

The Synthetic brushed my hair one last time and released me into her embrace.

Her arms were warm too. I wanted to hold her, but then I remembered—I haven't thanked him.

I looked back at him and he reached out for me one last time with a sad smile, patting my head.

He mouthed something, but I couldn't hear it with the crowd and my mother frantically screaming in my ears.

I wanted to know what he said. I asked him to repeat it.

But all he did was smile.

As soon as we were in my mother's car, the people around the Synthetic took him down and dragged him away. They were wearing strange looking suits with a large logo printed on the back. I could only make it out as 'Weyland Industries'.

"Mummy! He's _not_ a bad person! He _saved_ me! What are they doing? Why are they taking him away?!" I cried in my mother's face, but hers mirrored the same look of confusion. Her eyes carried unfathomable disarray and panic.

She hushed me, eyes widening. "It's alright, Aine! They're taking him away to fix him!"

Fix him?

"He's hurt too—just like you! They have to see what's wrong with him, so that nothing like this would ever happen again!"

"But why? He's not the one who hurt me! And isn't this a good thing? He still saved me even though—"

"Aine, darling, please believe me. This _is_ a good thing, but the people who made him need to see if there's anything wrong with him at all… just like all those people have to check you earlier."

"Will I ever see him again?"

My mother fell quiet.

I didn't know what that meant, but I was afraid to find out. I regretted ever asking her.

"Of course, my darling! You'll see him again—I'm sure of it! Now let's lie down and get you to the hospital!"

But I never did see him again.

I—No, 'we' never did get to thank him for what he did.

Who knew where I'd be or what would've happened if—

 ** _Author's_ _Notes:_** _Hi there, this is my first Aliens fanfiction. I watched "Alien: Covenant" for the first time last week and I have been catching up with the next screening over and over on my cable TV. lol I really enjoyed Fassbender's acting and Waterson's character (well, the Xenomorphs too, of course! lol) but I just can't get my fangirling over so I do what I know best when I need to get rid of my fangirling fit: writing fanfiction! Hope you enjoy it!_

 _I'm aware that in some of the Covenant's deleted scenes (which I will refer to for this story, as well as some parts in the film's novelisation) that Walter called David 8 a prototype, "the first of his kind; I am merely a copy". But I'm guessing that's a bit odd, considering David 8 is labelled... well, 8th (possibly of all the prototypes). I somehow figured that it was still possible to purchase your own Synthetic anyway, since the Prometheus film promotion included an advert for Synthetics. So the Synthetic above is actually one of the more commercial units... Let's just say there is a reason for this scene later on. ;)_

 _Btw, the name "Aine" is pronounced "ay-nah"; it 's Irish, meaning 'radiance' and 'splendour'._ _(I was wrong before lol)_

 _*nana - pretty sure this is British slang for 'grandmother'._

 _7 June - Final edits included. It is DEFINITELY much smoother now. Changed the title once again! lol_


	2. 1-0 Fidelity

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.

 **The** **Captor, the Captive and the Captivated  
** 1-0: Fidelity

 _Year 2094, April 30 (17 years later)  
_ _West London, United Kingdom_

Stop that.

 _Why am I still thinking about that? And today of all times?_

"The progress we have on these third generation embryos is more than promising for emulation in deep space travel," I slink my way out of the swivel chair and point Mrs Oram to the microscopes in question; there are over three of them, all lined next to each other on the table before us. She follows my suggestion—I notice her teeth chatters a little in this cold room. "With the help of our machine, these embryos could be kept, stored and birthed anywhere where there is enough oxygen. So far, there has been no signs of cellular degeneration within these embryos—therefore we believe they will be born healthy regardless the length of travel."

When she says nothing, my mind strays back to the Synthetic.

 _His long, trimmed blonde hair. His big blue eyes. His structured jaw and facial muscles made up of hardy bones and well-timed curves. Something about him reminds me of a star. He sparkles. He shines. He lightens up the dark. If I'm anything in this solar system, I'm the moon and he's the light that makes me glow a little._

"We have also tried and tested these embryos on two separate occasions," I shake my head and pause now for effect instead—Mrs Oram doesn't seem to notice my small daydreaming. "The first was with the Lunar 7, orbiting the Earth over two years' time and then returning to Earth. Upon returning, the embryos were 'birthed' and reintroduced into the wild without any accidents. The second is a repeat with the same starting journey as the first, except that that batch of embryos were birthed within the International United Alliances' biosphere dome on Luna and—well, I'm sure you've heard the rest of it in the news by now!"

Maybe it's the room. Maybe it's reminded me of that winter's night in Bristol.

We really shouldn't stay in here too long. I'm getting migraines already!

"Yup," Mrs Oram chuckles as she fiddles with the magnifier, "They wouldn't stop saying your name all day _every day_ on the TV!"

Right.

Because of my _impeccable_ timing, the news channels have all been talking about my last press conference. Of course, it was nothing compared to the news of Weyland-Yutani's merger or the announcement for the construction of its first colonisation ship—the latter has been circulating since it was broadcasted early last year. Nearly 2 years have now passed and that still shows no signs of slowing down.

"Well, anyways," I brush a stray lock of hair from my face, "I believe these cows and the others are going to be a great addition to the terraforming of Origae-6."

Mrs Oram's small smile is now ear-to-ear—she's been doing that a lot every time she'd visit our facility. She's already gotten so used to wearing this ridiculous lab suit—since it wasn't a full-body suit (more akin to a jumpsuit than a hazmat) or made out of thick plastic material, it's actually _very_ hard to get used to. In fact, I sometimes get conscious of the way it glides over my normal clothes underneath because the white, almost transparent fabric is like a thin sheath of artificial skin. Mrs Oram herself likened it to condoms and that made me even more conscious of it!

As I stare back at her, I realise that she was actually taller than I ever was (I've forgotten!). I notice that her blonde hair's gotten longer too and dark roots began to grow from the top of her head. Her tanned skin is still looking good as well—I wonder if it's that new vegetarian diet and pure water regime that's been so effective. I should really cut down on my meat eating ha—

"Wow, very good!"

I nearly jump at the sound of her voice; she's giggling like a child now, but it is enjoyable to see. I follow her as she takes a look into the next two microscopes.

"Looks like the Covenant is really going to be the new Noah's ark! Chris is _so_ going to freak out once he finds out about this!"

I nod. "Oh, yes, with human couples and all!"

"You know, I'm glad you've convinced the board to take these with us," Mrs Oram looks at me square in the eyes; her tone was serious. "This is amazing work! Even though we're not aware of any present lifeforms there, having a sense of familiarity with these Earth animals would definitely make it easier for us to _colonise_ Origae-6."

"Don't get me wrong, Mrs Oram, I—"

" _Karine_. How many times have I told you to—"

"Karine, I didn't approach the board over this. My husband, Julian—"

"Had influence?"

"Well, I'm not too sure myself! His last name is Hastings," as I shrug, she begins laughing at my dry, British humour and I smile back.

"Or maybe it's just your _newlyweds charm_ that's working on him?"

"Oh, I'd like to think so! But alas, men hadn't been responding very well to romantic _treatments_ lately!" she bursts into fits of laughter at that and I let out a snort, "Anyway, as you know, Hastings Ltd has been at the forefront of the Covenant's construction crew. His father knew the Chairman of Yutani Corp as they were in the same university together and it also helps that my husband is a geologist with expertise on terraformation. In fact, he knows Mrs Branson—she actually taught at his university several years back!"

"Yeah, she did mention that back at the wedding…"

Ah, yes. The wedding.

 _My_ wedding.

"Oh, I still haven't told you just how irritating it's been to have the men in our lives behaving just like children!" Karine resumes with elevated voice, "I know we were so rowdy and drunk at your wedding, but that's nothing! This is hardly any—"

I narrow my eyes as she went on, elaborating mainly on how the rest of the male crew of the colonisation ship has been insisting on carrying kegs of beer like pirates of old times. She told me even her own husband is excited in the same childish way whenever he speaks of making of the first ever sermon on a distant planet.

I still can't believe that the wedding was only a month ago.

I play with the ring on my finger.

 _Why?_

It feels no different somehow. It doesn't feel… _special_.

"—I think this trip's just… going to be a man-made miracle and I still can't believe we're actually playing a huge part in it," I stop reminiscing the moment she stops talking and pats me on the shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

I startle back to her. "Yes, I'm fine. Man-made miracle, indeed."

"You were staring at _and_ playing with your ring! What's wrong? _Post-wedding jitters_?"

Now that's just funny!

I scoffed, "It's nothing, really."

"You know you can tell me anything, right? What, is it something about Julian? Is he not… um, giving you what you want?"

That made me laugh.

Do I come across as high-maintenance?

"What?" she sneers again, "Boys can talk _big_ before the wedding and _shrink_ once a ring is around their finger!"

"And _which_ finger do you mean, really?"

Karine blushes and pokes at my side. "Oh, you pervert! I guess that means you don't have any problem in that department now, do you? I was just being a good friend, anyway!"

I don't know how I could possibly tell anyone about the _strange_ relationship that I have with my husband. I don't think it could come across as a good thing for the both of us even if I did.

After all, he _does_ look like _him_.

"Nah, he's wonderful—really!" I sheepishly knead on the back of my neck. "We're doing great ac—"

"In bed?"

"Trust me, he's ful _filled_ his duties as a husband!" I make a face—a cross between winking and sticking out my tongue.

She laughs aloud again.

"But I was just wondering…" I begin to fiddle with the sleeves of my suit. "Did I ever tell you that I was the one who proposed?"

"Well, this is an era of strong women," she shrugs, "More women are now exploring the option to work out-of-orbit. So I'm not at all surprised!"

I lower my head, bobbing it as if to look like nodding. But I didn't truly agree.

 _Because why do I feel so terrible about it?_

I couldn't possibly tell her just how lost I feel in this marriage, as if I was a third wheel and is stringing along the ride of someone else's life. Of course, then again, I can't say that I'm just as honest in this marriage of convenience, especially given the fact that—

"Tell me something, Aine," Karine senses my being uncomfortable with the subject, so she changes it; she takes a good look around the lab and taps on the switch panel just behind the microscopes. The white blind disappears and the glass window reveals multiple other scientists working in full hazmat suits in the other room. "The Covenant's christening is in another three months' time, but why did it take you so long to join the party?"

I sigh. "First of all, _I'm_ not joining the party—my research, the embryo bank and my machine is. Secondly, I had to find legal ways around my mother's contract. This organisation was hers from the very beginning and she started this off as merely an embryo conservation project, but bureaucracy as it were has a tight grip upon every hold. So I had a lot of red tapes to bypass! I could only bypass them when—"

That's the cue for Karine to reach out and squeezes my arms. When tears fall off from my eyes, she pulls me into a hug.

This seems all too familiar.

"I'm sorry, honey," she murmurs as she rubs my back, "It's still very raw, isn't it? I shouldn't have—"

Perhaps too familiar—

"I—I'm… fine. _Really_." I manage to speak, but effectively it sounds like a broken record.

—even more so now as she strokes my hair.

"Shh. It's okay. Just breathe. Take your time."

I hold back my tears. My eyes sting.

When she backs away, I breathe in deeply and exhale a long sigh, but my body is afflicted by slight tremors—I hope she doesn't notice.

 _That's right. At the end of the day, there will be no relief for the loss that I still feel even now…_

"My mother has kept this project a secret from the world," I sniff as I speak—the cold temperature is making it worse. "Her reasoning was questionable… but then again, given what threats the Covenant have received too, it was no wonder that she would keep its publicity at a bare minimum. She didn't want people to think that she was abandoning Earth or humanity for that matter—she loved every one of these animals. She kept them all in this way just so that I would be able to tell _and_ show my children what they really are… in a better world."

"She was a visionary."

"Indeed."

"Look, this project is obviously very, _very_ dear to you," Karine is speaking slowly, as if she's afraid her next few words could physically cut. "But that's the very reason why you really should go on this mission with us! With Julian!"

 _Is she trying to tell me something?_

I turn to her slowly. "Karine, I…"

"Nope, you know what? It's okay! I was being a rude friend… _again_! I am _so_ sorry," she pats my elbow and smiles nervously. "I will continue to nurture these babies in your place! The people of Origae-6 are forever in your debt!"

I laugh at that. "We don't even know if this would really work there!"

"If it worked on simulations, it will work in real life!"

As our laughter mingled, I feel slightly better than seconds ago.

But I'm no less suspicious.

"Anyways, I shouldn't keep you any longer," Karine makes a visible shiver and growls, "Best get our cold-sushi asses home to our husbands now!"

 _There it goes again. What is she trying to say?_

I nod.

As soon as we're stripped off the 'condom' suits (and laugh all about it as we always do), we're back to the normality of blouses, cardigans and jeans. And flat heels.

I walk her out to the parking space outside the facility. She's still laughing—this time, talking about her husband's future cheer and joy about this collaboration (which was understandable considering his strong religious background).

I have to say, it is apt that they named the ship "Covenant" and that my mother's lifelong project joins this colonisation mission. I joke with Karine and say that I would be willing to bet that Chris will fall down on his knees and pray the moment she reveals the whole 'Noah's Ark' concept to him. I even ask her to pay me $100 if he would call himself the next Noah. She laughs it off loudly. That made me smile.

We then drive off our cars in separate ways, but not before she had officially invited me to the christening of the said spaceship. She tells me that it wouldn't even take much of my time, but I suppose out-of-orbit travel is still fine. I assure her that she will see me there in a few months' time.

Any chance of interstellar travel is too much too soon for me. I only opted out of it due to the emotional duress that I'm currently under.

If _she_ hadn't passed, I would've—

I can't possibly be traveling for a distant planet and leave the very Earth I buried my mother under in just the same year! I can't consider myself to be that cruel—to myself or anyone!

 _Ah, right. But then, there's Julian. And there's—_

The drive home leaves me weary and my mind is churning every second of the way. I keep thinking back to what happened in that little flat in Bristol and about that Synthetic who saved my life.

I have to face the facts: I'm missing _him_. Especially in my time of emotional turmoil.

I arrive home to find it empty.

It's a modest flat with two bedrooms and an open-planned living room cum kitchen. We had everything that we needed here despite us making enough income (and inheritance) to afford a little more. It always seems cosier and smaller when it's stuffed and messy to the brim with our things like this—I best clear some of these things and maybe take a nice, hot bath.

Once I'm finished with the cleaning up and bathing, I take my time to brush my shoulder-length black hair in front of the mirror—curls begin to form naturally at the ends. The faded freckles on my pale face made me wonder if being happier within my marriage might've actually helped with my skin regime. I stare closer into my own eyes, wondering why it always look darker than black instead of the livelier brown it should be—I suppose that's the curse of the Asian gene I got from my nana. I wonder why my hands are trembling as I continue to brush my hair.

Even after all that, I still find myself alone. So I start to prepare for dinner: beef broccoli and Spanish omelette—since those are Julian's favourites. Then I go through the preparations for my embryo bank's donation to the Covenant. By the time I was done, it's already half past eight. I'm about to call my husband when I hear the front door open.

"Speak of the Dev—"

Julian beams as soon as he finds my face. Almost inhumanly.

He doesn't look at all suspicious (and I have been expecting it). His slicked back blonde hair is as tidy as it was this morning, his three-piece grey suit clean without any obvious smear or smudge. He's brought his work home again, though.

I stop at my tracks.

Maybe _this_ is what Karine was trying to tell me. The signs were obvious after all; he's been travelling back and forth between here and Arizona. He's helping Mrs Branson – the wife of the Covenant's future Captain – with all the terraforming equipment. He's _preparing_ for something.

My gut is wrenching.

"Hey, wonderful!" he winks and locks the door behind him. I approach him slowly, collect his coat and kiss his cheek. But then he swoops in for my lips instead and laughs off my stiff reaction. "I have great news!"

Oh, no.

Please don't tell me. Don't tell me he's made a decision about us without going through the motions with me!

"R-Really now? Wha-What is it?" I hang his coat with trembling hands.

Being taller than me, he makes it obvious how dominant he is; he pulls me by my waist and kisses me on the lips again. "Guess!"

Don't tell me. It's about him and the Covenant, isn't it?

"Is it about… y-your father, perhaps?" I attempt a smile.

"No!"

Damn it.

"I have no idea what you mean, Julian," I frown at him. "But just… please don't tell me you've made a huge decision without consulting me."

He returns my frown. "It's an opportunity of a lifetime, Aine! I'll be making history!"

Oh, God. He _is_ going.

"Can't you just be happy for me?"

I choke. "I-I am… I'm happy for you…"

"Well, what's done is done!" he gives out a forced sigh as he falls onto the couch, "But anyway, you're looking at the second terraforming officer aboard the Covenant!"

I'm at a loss for words. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I hate being right.

"I know you don't want to go," he gets back up and stops in front of me, gauging. Julian begins to touch me, rubbing slowly from my hands up my arms as if to comfort me. But I was seething with pent up anger, rage and frustration—not that he seems to have a clue. "So I've asked them to include me aboard on my own…"

No. How did he pull _that_ off? Everyone had to be a married couple!

This can't be happening.

 _Why can't anyone or anything just pick my side in my time of need?_

I find the next words harder to say. "So you're going to just leave me here… _alone_?"

"Come on now," he nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck. "I'm sure you'll be happier here alone than crowded in space… You'll be closer to your mother!"

—who is now _dead_.

"Y-you're right," my voice is breaking—again, not that he's noticing.

He reaches out and holds me close.

But that didn't make me feel any better.

 _How could this rival against the Synthetic?_

"Thank you," he snickers and walks off into the kitchen. "So, what's for dinner?"

Well, at least he's hungry today.

"Oh, you've made beef broccoli! _And_ Spanish omelettes! It's as if you knew I had news to celebrate! Love you so much, Aine!"

I need to sit down. I need to think.

"I should also tell you that I'll be heading off to Weyland-Yutani's facility in Arizona _permanently_ to join the rest of the crew. You're welcome to join me there, of course—even though you're not one of us, your embryo bank is a huge deal now! You could still work—"

 _Mummy, what should I do?_

I twist the ring on my finger around and around as I fidget, continually listening to my husband's excited chatter.

But my heart has already dunk into the floor and through the mud.

"—and there's a great deal you'll need to teach the crew about your machine, too! So it would be great if you could be with me there! Captain Branson has asked about you. I told him you couldn't possibly leave Earth… since—well, you know. It's understandable and all! But his wife thinks you should come with me too—the woman thinks the world of your mother, Aine. I think it'd—"

This is forcing my hand. My guilt-tripping him with his favourite dishes isn't working—or perhaps it has and now he's guilt-tripping me because he doesn't want to, in fact, have me join him in Arizona. Because I can't see any other way around this.

Perhaps I should just see how things will go and try it out. Maybe I'm not cut out for space travel enough to be dismissed—so it's a win-win, right? Maybe I get to find out what Karine meant or what all this _shitting_ lies meant.

Oh, God.

Am I missing the bigger picture here? Should I just wallow in self-pity and stay here on Earth? Or should I pick up my heart pieces in space instead? Since I didn't get lucky with billions of men on this Earth and ending up with one so callous as Julian, I might've a better chance with those colonists!

No, I can't think like that! This is monumental to humanity's evolution and history! This isn't just about Julian and I or a group of like-minded scientists experimenting on a new planet! Just because he's an arsehole, doesn't mean I should be!

 _But what would my mother want me to do?_

"I will need to start packing soon, love," he talks between eager bites, seemingly ignoring my dazed look and all this eager talking is suspicious. "We'll need to pack up some personal items for me to bring to Origae-6… Can you even imagine what that's going to be like? To _start over_ —"

His words catch me off guard.

 _Bugger_. That was my light-bulb moment.

 ** _Author's Notes:_** _Hey guys! Did I establish her character or even the mysterious mood enough? And can you guys guess what Aine is to the Covenant (i.e. botanist, biologist, etc)?_ _Btw, second to Daniels, Karine is my favourite. I really liked her going "Don't say that!" whenever Maggie (Tennessee's wife) keeps asking her to wear gloves for fear of contamination. I think it was very human of her... ;)_

 _I will discuss the timeline soon. If you wonder if she has ever known David or the Prometheus crew, well, you'll need to read to find it out. No spoilers!_

 _June 7 - Final edits included. Expanded a bit more on her history with Synthetics (which you will know the significance soon enough)! ;)_


	3. 1-1 Incognito

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.

 **The Captor, the Captive and the Captivated  
** 1-1: Incognito

 _Year 2094, September 15  
_ _(Private) Weyland-Yutani Corporation Deep-Space Research and Development facility, Arizona, United States_

To my dismay, I've spent the last five months at the Weyland-Yutani's facility doing nothing but meagre and redundant things (if anything, I'm closer to growing my hair past my chest!).

I'm no closer to _confirming_ why or how Julian has been distant with me nor have I made up my mind about whether I should be going on the Covenant at all. But I have been working closely with the rest of its crew.

When I first got here, Karine was the first to approach me; she handed me $100 and she did it in front of her husband too. He was desperate for an explanation, but it was amusing to keep it a secret from him. I did promise that the money will go into the local county's Church fund and he literally just "thanked Jesus". Captain Branson, however, has been a naughtiest rascal of all of them; he made damn sure that I was the only person to ever get the most workout than the rest of them, despite knowing that I wasn't going to join them.

Yes, I've had to do much of the endurance training because of him. I've even arranged my ketogenic diet to suit it and in doing so, shed over 10 pounds of fat to make way for muscles—though I was already at the safe range of BMI level before.

It seems that Tennessee Faris (the future pilot of the colonisation ship) was the only one who doesn't understand the whole idea of 'maintaining good fitness' (or the purpose of simply keeping good, healthy shape) for the sake of space travel. He's been telling me one of his jokes about it; _"I haven't been losing weight but soon enough, doll, weight's gonna lose me!"_ I knew that he was referring to zero gravity in space and that makes me smile whenever I feel a little depressed about my own personal mission here.

In fact, the more I spent time with this _motley_ crew, the more attached I became to each one of them. Their charming personalities are starting to grow on me and it's highly persuasive.

While I was preparing for a life-long mission out of space anyway, there's still a kind of gravity that lets my heart sink deeper into Earth at the same time. I feel _defunct_ now that my mother has died; she would make these choices so much easier to choose from, regardless of the dire sacrifices or substantial reward to be had. It is at this constantly conflicting junctures of thinking that I truly feel the loss of her presence. It's affecting me in ways where I set lose my thoughts more recklessly nowadays and when I do, the world fades into nothing but white noise. It almost seems as if I was still in mourning, as if she'd only just died.

Now I've settled into thinking that I was nothing but a tree in the middle of a glorious hurricane with winds trying to separate me from my roots.

My head is no doubt with the Covenant, but not my heart.

"This machine is _way_ too big to be a normal cold storage unit!" I start to the sound of the mechanics going through the metal panels and steel bars in front of me; one of them is inspecting the rivets, nuts and bolts of the machine that they had just installed. He laughs, "But it's still pretty impressive!"

I need to stop spacing off.

"It's not just cold storage. This serves as a life support machine for the embryos, but also a cryopod just as well," I explain.

"How did you manage to create this?"

"Oh, it wasn't me. It was my mother and her team's invention. I had no part in it!"

He studies me for a second.

I study him back. His name is Rico Hernandez and he's much smaller, shorter than me—that makes it easier for him to squeeze between machines, I suppose! He's tanned, but his round face is nearly smudged altogether in grease and motor oil (not that he seemed to mind!). And that filthy emerald green jumper isn't flattering on him, too.

As he snickered, he wipes his face with his sleeve; "Oh, I get it!" he's laughing even louder now, "You're just the middleman then!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nah, I's just wonderin' why I didn't recognise you before… You're only here to send this thing off, right? You're not actually going to spend almost 20 years in space just to get somewhere?"

I wonder what gave me away?

"Yes," I cross my arms to my chest, "I'm just a middleman— _woman_. I'm sending this baby into space so I could have fun here on Earth."

He doesn't react to my teasing—I think because my face doesn't look like joking, I suppose.

"R-right… Let me just make sure all the wires and pipes are connected properly before I leave you to it," and he resumes work immediately.

Whenever I watch the people here go off to work like this, with barely time to spend on chit chats, you can actually feel time ticking away.

Everyone is extremely pressured to complete the ship on schedule for its first in-orbit flight; the last ship that meant such a great deal to the Weyland Industries – named Prometheus – was completed within a year and everyone wanted to top that score. But this is a bigger ship (and probably with an even bigger mission!) after all. Not only that, because of my last minute addition, I've had to go through every single check-up of my machine's installation for fear that it will render my mission – no, _our_ mission – hopeless.

In any case, today is supposed to be the final check-up—the ship's AI system has been delayed long enough and it's now rearing too close to the in-orbit flight test. That's why I'm just as excited as everyone else to see this ship hovering in space. But at the same time, I'm frightened of any possible ill-prospect that might come with it now that my machine is installed.

So I have been actively watching these workers _fuss_ around with my machine.

I lean against one of the steel casing of the galley in the ship's embryonic cryo-chamber with Hernandez and his men working, and start to ponder on something. Then I check the time.

Half–past three.

"Aren't you curious at all about the cargo?" I ask him suddenly.

"It's prolly just a bunch of babies, right?"

I don't think he's right to call it 'just a bunch of babies'. They're so much more than that—animals or humans!

"They're mostly consisted of extinct species of animals, but they are some common farm animals too," I reply with furrowed eyebrows.

"Even fishes?"

"What do you think?" I sigh as I continue to watch him like a hawk. "I can't possibly be sending turtles and not have the food they need to create a stable ecosystem!"

"How can you know if the turtle doesn't already have food there?"

I shrug. "I can't."

He shrugs back and proceeds to smirk as he tightens some bolts.

"There is such a thing called _faith_ and _preparation_ , you know," I somehow feel the need to influence him. "I can only assume that there must be corals there because on Earth corals are ancient and this planet is old enough to produce them. I can only hope that it has housed some animals—fishes or not. If we introduce turtles to it for example, we're not sure if the fishes there – if there _is_ any – would be edible for the turtles. It's much safer to bring the typical fish prey just in case it doesn't suit the turtle. All things considered, it is better that we maintain whatever bio-diversity the planet currently has for its lifeforms."

"So it doesn't make sense to me to bring these animals—what if they become extinct there too?"

"At the moment, we are aware that the extinction of these particular animals are due to human intervention. This planet doesn't have humans – _obviously_ – so we could actually start over with these species over there."

"Then why do you need to bring the species that are quarry for the animals?"

"If what you mean is that you want them to adapt to the surroundings there, well, I didn't say that that wasn't possible!"

He snorts.

"We simply have to try this out so that we'll know for sure. If all we had were untested theories, we'd all have a degree!"

He smiles a little. "I do have a degree!"

"I know. The executives told me that no mechanics or technicians here are without a degree in electrical engineering."

He laughs at that. "And here I thought you're lecturing me because you think I'm _beneath_ you!"

"Nonsense!" I look at my watch and smile back. "I was simply testing you!"

"You got some place to be?"

"No, but I'm wondering when we'll get this over with…"

"This is one of the last items on our to-do list. But give us an hour or so! We'll need to do another check-up with it before the system goes online—since this baby alters the ship's design!" he twists his arm strongly all of the sudden and makes a face. "Why don't you just go around and check things out?"

I nod.

After I'm sure he's done the oxygen supply pipes, I start to wander off in the almost-complete ship.

It's a quarter to four now and my stomach is squirming.

Ever since my arrival at the facility, I have taken to studying the ship's blueprints and maps for hours on end. So I know exactly where I needed to go next.

I stare hesitantly at the door before me. It was labelled R-8-1.

I've always liked the number eight—even more so now because it looks like the infinity symbol and this is a ship heading off to space. I've had to flash my ID card on the sensor by the door's side, considering the system is still offline, and the metallic door slides open smoothly.

The room reminds me a lot of the photos from the first space hotel on Luna. It's essentially a suite room with an attached toilet (no shower or bath since there is already a common facility allocated elsewhere), a bed, a wardrobe/drawer (hidden beneath the TV screen), a wall mounted table and an armchair by a hexagon-shaped window (which would be framing breath-taking views of space soon enough!). Every furniture is functional. It's all of the same grey colour too—just different shades for different angles or things. It could even be mistaken for a luxurious prison for all I care.

I've noticed that the bed was a queen size—this is supposed to be a couple's room after all. If Julian is going on his own, he's going to have plenty of _space_.

I chuckle at that.

As I pace around the room, I laugh about it.

Then I sit on the armchair. Still laughing.

Till I feel tears dripping down my cheeks.

I sigh.

The truth is, I'd always prefer to think he would be suffering and miserable if he goes with this anyway. But the present reality conflicts with me.

I know he'll have someone with him, someone I always knew he has always loved, someone meant for someone like him. Her existence in this plane called life will always make me realise how much of a mistake this marriage was. Sometimes I feel like I was the one he cheated with and not on. In an essence, I still believe that very much…

Rowena is the only girl on his mind and the only reason why he never married her was because his family refuses to acknowledge her (don't ask me why they still hold on to such _dated_ traditions—perhaps it's the British aristocracy talking!). She was Julian's childhood friend—inseparable, I'm told. They've hooked up before, but his parents didn't encourage it. They didn't like her not for any bad attitude or habitual quirks, but rather for her profession of routinely harassing and criticising other people (in other words, she's a _journalist_ ).

If it hadn't been for her work, she'd fit the bill for his wife: witty, rich and tall and gorgeous. She has legs stretching on for miles and the elongated curvatures that would rival a primal insect (okay, I admit that was harsh!). Her luscious blonde hair matches his own, but her green eyes are always striking like Neptune on the cusp of Jupiter. Something about her wonderful olive skin makes most men thinks it's spelt the same way as 'caramel', too.

She's my exact opposite.

Like I said, I was the one who proposed, but it wasn't for some pathetic, one-sided romantic gesture.

Both of us needed each other's help.

Hastings Ltd has been pressured by Weyland Industries back then to acquire at least one scientific branch to add to its mainly construction backbone in order for there to be a viable partnership between them. My mother was pressured by Weyland Industries because they wanted to acquire her conservation technology (particularly regarding the method to obtaining DNA from old animal bones and to maintaining cellular integrity of these DNA in her special machine).

Weyland had been hounding my mother to sell since the day she broke the news of the creation of her machine (and the successful reintegration of the extinct animals into the wild), but she didn't want to join Weyland just yet. By joining her company with Hastings Ltd however, she killed two birds with one stone—she got Weyland off her back and yet gained a big partner in the corporate world without sacrificing a limb.

Just before she died though, she revealed that she refused to join Weyland only because she wanted to make sure that she joined the giant corporation with a _perfected creation_ —she was never one who does work halfway or half-arsed. She wanted to be recognised for perfection every time. I suppose she and Mr Weyland have that in common.

Once the company is merged together, it was easy for Julian to win his parents' hearts by marrying me—if only they know that I was the one who proposed, not him. I suppose he was a coward then and he still is now.

I clench my fists on the edge of the armrests.

It seems all the females in my family are doomed to marry miserable men! Would girls like Rowena be having it easy? In fact, she stayed single since she broke up with Julian in high school. God, she could've had anyone! Why can't she have suffered the same way I have?

 _Who am I kidding? I will never wish my misery upon someone else…_

I startle to the sound of my watch's alarm. It was now a quarter past four.

I get up from the chair and give the room one last look. To think I was never planning on leaving Earth despite all of this. To think I would be none the wiser. To think I'll be letting Julian get away with it… What in Hell was I thinking?

As I walk out, I choose to pass by the cryosleep hall again and find that Hernandez is still checking on my machine. But I tell him that I was still touring the ship and leave him to work.

I look up to the ceiling as I exit. It really does look like the inside of a building!

This is where Rowena and 1,999 other people will be hung in cryopods, awaiting to greet a new planet by the time they wake up from cryosleep.

I only found out about her joining the ship when a friend of mine, Erika Sugimoto, who has been running Yutani Corporation's scientific development division, showed me a list full of the colonists' details. For obvious security reasons, the list revealed no names, but it stated the gender, age, nationality, place of birth and profession (or rather, qualification) of all the colonists. Rowena was the only 25 year old journalist who I know was British but was born in Mali.

I knew instinctively then that she was definitely the one Julian has been seeing behind my back—the pieces of the puzzle falls into place so perfectly. I suppose it helps him a lot to cheat with her that we only ever slept together on the first night of our wedding.

I trace my hands along each empty cryopods and sigh. Then I go _there_.

Julian and I have our own parts to play in each other's life—for this purpose, we had to look like the _perfect_ young couple. As a terraformist, he goes off to check equipment with Captain Branson's wife nearly all day long. As a man, he goes off to the mess hall nearly all night long—alcohol is restricted to several ounces, but gambling is not. As it is, it was very hard for him to squeeze some time off to see me _or_ to see his 'girlfriend'.

With eyes everywhere, he had to be very discreet.

But he hadn't considered just how easy it would be for me to trace his footsteps. I found out his hidden schedule because I mimicked him in every way; I asked everyone how to be discreet about doing something (had to come up with a lie: that I had a fetish that needed release! _Hilarious_!) and where would be the best place to do it. Of course, he probably tells them he wants extra booze or a cigarette maybe. And it helps that everyone in different parts of the ship's construction have different break times, too—that's about the only time he's got to see her.

So these workers have been telling me that the terraforming bay (where all the vehicles and equipment are due to be stowed) has no monitoring system—only the hanger bay where it opens to has. There is even a resting area in it that is also soundproof. Sounds like the perfect place to cheat your wife in, isn't it?

I was lucky that Erika has shown me access to her office/laboratory too. She was a classmate – _roommate_ , actually – from Oxford University, back when she studied nano-biology and we grew close very easily (she's bisexual, so I'm not sure if the attraction was physical!). She was glad to see me in this facility and tried to talk me through into going with Julian on this mission. Amongst other things, she even showed me a prototype of a listening device and it was just too fortuitous for me to ignore. I sneaked one out of her office and placed it in the break room yesterday. As long as I'm within 20 meters proximity with the device, I can listen to it via an earpod.

Now I have to find a good hiding spot while everyone in the terraforming bay goes off for a 30 minutes break.

I spot a small opening between two piping structure outside the room and sit there in the dark.

Waiting. Expecting.

Time is ticking. It's almost five now.

Julian _must_ be doing this today. He should already be here by now—he sees her at intervals during the week. The last time I suspected he saw her was two days ago. They were due to see each other again.

I can't believe I actually _want_ this.

Just when it was close to the end of break time, I hear the sound of laughter through the earpod. It's a she.

 _"Hold on!"_

I hear the sound of the door closing and a click, then a buzzing—the blinds closing.

 _"I'm sure you don't want anyone to catch us."_

 _"Yes, thank you, peaches!"_

Ew. Thank God we had never gotten close enough to establish nicknames for one another.

 _"Where were you just now?"_ Julian complains.

 _"I was—at the seminar—with the rest of the—colonists."_

The kissing sounds just keeps on coming (pun not intended!).

 _"Uh-huh. Well, go on, then. Get naked."_

 _"Strip me."_

I bite my lip. That's right—Rowena was always the sexy one. The one who could demand attention whenever she so pleases!

I continue to ignore the sounds of suckling and moaning.

 _"Mmm. You taste like heaven…"_

 _"And do you miss heaven?"_

 _"Mmm. Terribly!"_

 _"Naughty boy! You're already stiff!"_

 _"Been holding back too long! Come on, we haven't got much time! I need to be inside you!"_

 _"Alright,_ married _man! Put it in!"_

 _That_ was perhaps too much. What a bitch!

I feel my heart rip.

 _"Ah, yes! Oh, fuck yes!"_

 _"Say you love me, Julian!"_

 _"Rowena, you know I've always loved you!"_

 _"Ha-Harder! Go on! Come!"_

I throw the earpod across the bay where it bounces off a control panel and rolls along the metal floor. My vision is blurred. My heartbeat is quickening.

But I need to know this. I need to face this.

With drenched cheeks, I get up to collect the earpod back. I give them a few seconds before putting it back on.

 _"I still don't think this is fair to your wife, darling."_

 _"She'll be fine."_

 _"I know that… she's much stronger than I'll ever be."_

 _"How do you mean?"_

 _"She always finishes what she starts—no matter how badly it makes her feel. She's never half-arsed about it. Always diligent and efficient."_

Julian doesn't say a word, but a kiss resounds.

 _"But you're the one that I want."_

 _"Well, let's not forget I'm not the one your_ family _wants."_

 _"Once we're off this planet, their opinion matters no more."_

 _"Are you going to divorce her?"_

 _"Not here, not now. I need to do it off-planet. That way neither of us – or_ any _of us – would get the blame."_

Rowena finds that funny. _"So you'll blame space?"_

 _"I blame the stars."_

I hold back a sob.

 _"Be kind to her. She's not actually a bad person,"_ she sounds so sincere I almost sympathised. " _And I'm not one who's proud to become a homewrecker!"_

 _"You're not! Neither is she! My home is just… already wrecked as it is."_

Oh, boo-hoo, Julian! Blame it on your parents—why don't you?

 _"Well then, I'd like to think she is just at the wrong place and time."_

Julian says nothing to that.

That's when I start to crouch in a corner and cry. I don't think of anything else but just the need to let my emotions run wild for that moment alone.

Then I wait once again.

I hear them whisper about an overdue tour of the ship, but they still leave the room separately. Once they are gone long enough and as I gain several odd looks from the workers (for my reddened and swollen face, no doubt!), I retrieve the listening device.

As I walk through the ship's hull and decks, I wipe my face frequently with the end of my sleeves. Now it was wet through and through.

Suddenly I remembered.

"But where will I go now?" the fear of bumping into them made me squirm deeper into my heart.

There _is_ one place they won't ever go.

I head straight for it.

 ** _Author's Notes: _**_Finally. This scene was longer than I expected it to be, but there is a reason for it. I needed to establish Aine's relationship with her husband and develop her "work before all else" attitude in life._

 _I changed the rating to M just in case (for cussing and sexual references lol!). P_ _lease let me know what you think, alright?_

 _June 7 - Final edits included! Fixed syntax and some small plot bolts. lol_


	4. 1-2 Forbearance

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.

 **The Captor, the Captive and the Captivated  
** 1-2: Forbearance

"The bridge looks so much better than in the concept photos," Captain Jacob Branson smiles broadly as he gives the pilot's seat a feel; the cold metallic frames startles him as he sinks into it.

In that moment, the unfamiliar panels of multi-coloured buttons, screens and gears all look intimidating. Even the smell of fresh leather, unwrapped plastic covers, metallic panels and bodies seem so powerful to him. He knew then that the stirring in his stomach was of pure and utter excitement. A big smile decorates his face as he runs his hand lightly over the panels, eager to click on them and feel the ship responding to each one. It fills him with a sense of euphoria, but dinged with a dash of nausea too.

His wife, Daniels, joins him in the next seat. "I don't know… I still think it's a little—"

"Masculine?"

" _Monotonous_ —I was going to say monotonous, Jake."

"I don't know, babe. Sparco's old red coloured seats're just not a _ship's_ colour scheme, ya' know?"

"Well, maybe we just need some hula-lady doll or something…"

The Captain blurts a chuckle. "Like the one in T's caravan?"

" _Exactly_ the one," she laughs back at him.

"I don't know. Just don't let Oram sees it—he'll freak out!"

"He's not _that_ case-sensitive!"

Captain Branson smirks at that and lets out a sigh; he relaxes his shoulders and places his hands onto the armrests, looking ahead at the windshield before him. The hanger outside is filled to the brim with people pacing back and forth with equipment, but his eyes see different.

"Just think," he points out to his wife, "In a week, instead of looking at these guys, we'll be looking at space itself! It'll be like being surrounded by a thousand photos of the Hubble shots, but magnify the clarity by like ten-fold!"

Daniels sighs too. "Babe, the real deal is going to be even more impressive!"

"And I can't even begin to imagine!"

They turn to smile at one another and reach out to hold hands—even though they haven't been married too long, they still feel giddy looking at each other. Just as she leans in to kiss his cheek, they stumble back into their seats when thundering footsteps echo behind them. Good thing the seats could swivel 360 degrees!

The crowd was none other than Miss Erika Sugimoto, the Head of Scientific Research at the new Weyland-Yutani Corporation. She's accompanied by two executives, wearing some kind of laboratory jumpsuits with strange net-like white masks, and a man who looks like he's in need of a really good joke.

But as soon as the man spots the couple, he smiles at them. He is nearly as tall as the Captain, but with a pose as straight as a plank. He could well be a military man too—since his brunette locks were trimmed and neatly kept along his hairline. That would also explain his composure and expression. But his blue eyes are like that of a child—curious and keen, quick to spot changes in the atmosphere and environment.

Captain Branson immediately jumps to his feet and shakes Miss Sugimoto's hand.

"Erika, good to see you again," and his eyes addresses the crowd behind her. "What's up, guys?"

Erika is always much more menacing up close; she's tall, broad–shouldered and wearing a haircut that looked like it was manufactured especially for her head. It was jet-black and cut bluntly at the edge, reaching just below her earlobes and circling around her head like a perfect fit. But with the crowd she's bringing along with her, she looks like she was playing the right part.

Captain Branson is always 'weirded out' by the prim and proper way she looked—so just as she catches him staring at her, Daniels jumps to her feet and shakes hands with her too. It was a good save—best not upset your boss before you start working for her!

"Daniels. I didn't see you there," Erika greets her curtly, giving the Captain a side-eye; she seems to be onto him (or them).

Daniels laughs it off. "I told you: just Dani is fine!"

"Well, what brings you here today, Erika?" Captain Branson scratches his face, hiding his shame, as he speaks.

"We're due to complete a full systems check soon," she replies and the two executives behind her bow—except for that man, who just nods as if he's waiting for a proper introduction. "Once we get the AI's system online with the ship's mainframe, we'll be able to do a land-test on everything—just as a precaution to make sure that each part is going to work once the ship flies."

" _Sails_ ," Jacob corrects her before stuttering, "She's—uh, a ship, you know… So she sails… through space."

Erika's stiff, pale porcelain and almost doll–like face hardly reacts to him—he was beginning to think that she wasn't human at all. Her dark almond eyes are staring into his very soul!

"You're gonna have to forgive Jake for that! He gets jumpy about test flights all the time—especially where there's an audience!" Daniels jumps in after her husband's awkward interval.

"Well, you better get used to it, Captain. In any case, we should be ready to do a land-based flight simulation once all systems are good to go," Erika ignores that deadpanned look on the Captain face and points out to the executives, who suddenly backs away a few steps. The silent man takes the cue to step forward. "By the way, this is Walter—our best, _appropriate_ candidate to help you with this mission. He'll be joining you to maintain the ship's mainframe and online systems."

"So what does that really mean, then?" Captain Branson reaches out to shake the man's hand.

Walter holds the Captain's hand for a moment and smiles. "You can call me a technician of all sorts."

"Right, okay. This is my wife, Dani."

It was the Captain's wife turn to shake his hand. "Walter."

"Mrs Branson. I look forward to us working together," the man looks at both of them and smiles ear-to-ear.

"It's just Dani!"

" _Daniels_ , then."

"Ookay! Whatever floats your boat, I guess!"

Before Walter could rebut (and he seems eager to say something smart), Erika quickly jumps in, "Walter here is an amateur comedian too."

"Oh, really? _Convince_ me," says the Captain as he crosses his arms.

"Come on, then. Tell us a good joke!" Erika urges Walter.

"Alright," the military man pauses for the briefest of moments. "Why don't chickens drive in sedans?"

Captain Branson's face cracks into a smile; he doesn't know the joke nor the answer to it, but somehow he could tell it was going to be funny.

"I don't know," Daniels looks to her husband confusingly—she wonders if she'd missed something.

"Because they only ride in a _coupé_ ," Walter emphasises the last word and finishes it off with a wide, toothy smile.

"A coupé!" Jacob goes into a full blast guffaw. "A coup!"

"Ah, I see! _Chicken coup_!" Daniels nods to herself. "Of course! It had to be _your_ kind of joke!"

Captain Branson, still laughing, slams both his hands on the other man's shoulders; "Walter!" he nods, "You and I are going to get along just fine!"

"Very good, sir," Walter smiles back and slaps his hands on the Captain's wrists as a show of camaraderie.

"Right. Now, where were we, Erika?"

The said woman responds merely by raising one eyebrow.

"Ah, yes! I need to ask you about this ship… Why is it still not ready yet?"

"The embryo holding machine from Darcy's Conservation Bank is still being installed," she begins explaining. "It was properly installed last week, but we had to run a lot of checks over the circuit boards and make sure it won't overload the system before we switch everything online. There has been last minute adjustments as well. I admit, this last minute addition isn't helping us prepare faster than we'd like. But we've already signed the papers and we don't go back on our words, Captain Branson."

" _But_ I do appreciate that Weyland–Yutani has agreed on accepting the Bank's proposal. I knew Corinne Darcy and her conservation efforts. It has spurred a dream for all scientists to introduce extinct life off-planet," Daniels eagerly quip, hoping to stir Erika.

Walter beats Erika to it, "That's right. I'm most interested to see what would come to fruition from that once this mission goes underway. It is a pity that she won't be joining us… She passed back in April."

"No, but her _daughter_ has been resuming her mother's work," Erika joins in, finally. She appears animated to speak of this as if it was a topic she was due to discuss and she gives Walter a _look_. "It is a shame indeed that she is not joining this mission. As a zoologist, I imagine she would've been as eager as all of you to explore Origae-6."

"What was her reason to refuse?" Walter's question hangs in the air and he earns another _look_ from Erika, but he's quick to realise the harsh implication. "I see. Yes, it must be emotionally distressing indeed to have to leave one's mother for a distant planet having only buried her."

The Captain sighs as he lowers his head in respect. "Yeah, I can't imagine how she feels… It's a damn miracle she's actually here—running things around."

"You know, she reminds me of a robot actually," his wife jumps in, "She shuts off her emotion completely to focus on work, work, work and yet still manages to mingle around socially without seeming odd—"

"or _robotic_ ," Jacob interjects.

"Right. I just have no idea how she could have the time to entertain her husband so well whilst juggling all this," Daniels shakes her head in disbelief.

A moment of silence ensues.

"Speaking of robots," Erika lets out a sigh and pats Walter on the shoulder. "This is one such specimen."

Captain Branson nods. "Hmm. I noticed. He's really closed off and apath—"

"No, Captain. I meant that he _is_ one."

"You mean, he's a _Synthetic_?" Daniels gasps in disbelief; she begins to pace around Walter to observe him much closer. "Impressive! He's very human-like! And not just by looking like us, but he _speaks_ like us!"

The Captain nods. "Like a _weird_ , nerdy us."

"Well, of course," Erika's reply sounds more like a scoff, "A colonisation mission will require heavy human interaction at not just the cockpit, but with the ship's crew and its passengers. It is best and more _efficient_ if it came from a Synthetic that was human-like in appearance, but is highly technical and methodical. After all, with over 2,000 colonists joining you, Walter will not tire himself to the servitude of all of them."

"You haven't actually tested him out with 2,000 people, have you?"

"We intend to… At the christening."

"Of course, there are expected to be over 3,000 guests there," Daniels turn to her husband. "An audience for your first maiden spaceship flight, Jake… How do you feel?"

"Oh, God! _Pressured_!" the Captain runs his hands along his face now.

"Don't worry, Captain. I will help make sure that everything will go as planned and that everything will be like… _plain-sailing_ ," Walter smiles.

"Oh, you're making jokes now, huh?" Jacob laughs.

Daniels glances at Walter – wide-eyed and surprised – before looking back at her husband. "Yeah, don't worry, babe. _He's_ got your back. _I've_ got your back. The _whole_ crew has got your back too!"

"I cannot wait to work with all of them," Walter continues, still smiling. "And I understand that it's going to be Mr and Mrs Oram's anniversary soon, yes?"

Daniels leaves her mouth open. She taps her husband on the shoulder and whispers, "How does he know?"

"Ask him," Captain Branson whispers back.

"Why don't _you_ ask him?"

"Why don't you just ask _me_?" Erika sighs once more. "We've made him study the crew and all aboard. When he's still on the surface and uplinked to a network, he's more or less omnipotent."

"Definitely _more_ than less," the Captain interjected, studying Walter intently.

Daniels nods her head with him.

"Will there be some kind of manual or instructions for Walter?" Jacob looks hesitant, asking this.

"You won't be needing any of it, Captain. I am self-sufficient, so I will be able to take care of myself. However, should you require further information, there is a guide in your Captainship's Documents," Walter is the one who explains.

The husband and wife just begin to nod their heads in unison; it is hard to gauge whether their silence and crimped up face was a good sign or not. But even Walter could sense that the atmosphere is tense and fierce, heavy with awkwardness.

"Well, that's your cue," Erika then beckons the two executives, "Start preparing the AI."

Without words, they bow and leave upon her command.

But even after they've left, Erika seems to have ran out of things to say.

Another round of silence ensues with Walter shifting his eyes back and forth between all humans present.

He's killing time by surfing the Net, checking the ship and the hanger bay's monitors; then he starts tracking several familiar faces and spots one approaching the bridge. So just as Daniels is about to speak, the footsteps and echoes of someone mumbling doesn't startle him. In fact, Walter has been staring back at the door leading into the corridor for a while now.

When he returns to look the people in front of him, it's clear he knew who was fast approaching.

A tall man walks into the cockpit and makes a quick – but careless – glance inside. Neither the Captain, his wife nor Erika could recognise who it was given the dim lighting over the doorway.

"Not here either," he murmurs under his breath, turning to leave.

"Mr Hastings. Are you looking for your wife?" Walter calls out to the man.

Daniels pauses for a moment. "Julian? What are you doing here?"

"Oh," the blonde haired man walks right back in and waves, greeting everyone with a sheepish – if not, _frightened_ – smile. "Dani. Captain Branson. Miss Sugimoto."

"Are _you_ looking for your wife?" Erika repeats the question—there is a strange anger in her eyes and Julian feels it.

He struggles to speak, "I was just—"

Then, a young woman with long blonde hair and long legs appears from behind him; she giggles as she slinks her arms around his waist.

"Got you!" and she begins to rub her arms all over his torso, seemingly unaware of the presence of the other people in the room.

"Rowena, please! _Stop_!" Julian pushes her away.

"What's wrong, darling? I thought you—" when she steps into the light and reveals herself to the crowd before them, she stops.

"Rowena Miller, a journalist due to join our colonisation mission… as a _sleeping passenger_ , that is," Walter whispers as though he was only stating an obvious fact to the Captain and Daniels.

In truth, they're in too much shock of what was unfolding that they couldn't properly react to Walter's strange improvisations.

"He-Hello," Rowena gives a nervous wave.

"I'm sorry, Miss Miller," Erika walks off to them until she was about just a foot away from Miss Miller and crosses her arms. She stands taller than the blonde woman and thus looks imposing—it doesn't help that she has a deep, loud voice too. "Unfortunately, only authorised members of the crew are allowed passage into the cockpit. I trust you know the way out?"

Rowena nods—she could tell her presence is unwelcomed here. Julian didn't even bat his eyelashes at her.

Once she leaves, Julian opens his mouth, "Sir, please don't—"

" _Hastings_ ," it was the Captain's voice that booms across the room this time; he steps up to the hologram table in the middle of the room and places his hands there, exhaling. "I do not know what is going on between you and Miss Miller… or heck, even your wife! But I trust you know that I care very much about the integrity of my crew. So I hope you will not find it strange that I need – _require_ – an explanation for this outrageous behaviour of yours… preferably before the christening!"

The young man looks defeated. "U-Understood, Captain."

"You're dismissed."

He still stands there, thinking.

" _Dismissed_! Please leave before I have Walter throw you out!"

Walter glances at the Captain and then back at Julian, smiling. It wasn't a kind smile—it speaks of peak level amusement to want to carry another large man off the ship.

Julian gulps before exiting without any aim to counter that.

"Did that just… _happen_?" Daniels looks at all the three figures before her.

Walter nods. "Unfortunately, I can attest that it just happened to all of us just now."

"Who the hell was she?"

"I believe they were friends since childhood. They were in the same college together as well."

Captain Branson slams his hands on the table before him. "Damn it!"

"Please refrain yourself from damaging the ship," Erika's voice comes across as slow, weary and disappointed. "I know you're upset, but I will be more upset if you damage the ship before her maiden flight."

The Captain mouths a 'sorry'.

"Jake, you can't dismiss him entirely," his wife tries to comfort him.

Erika agrees. "She's right. Mr Hastings is here not only on professional account, but he is a _political favour_. We need to ship him off—God, and _now_ I know why!"

Daniels watches intently when Walter nods to that with what looked like a smirk.

"But not without his wife—that's his punishment! That's his karma!" Captain Branson points out.

Daniels frowns at him. "But how could you convince her to go without… telling her what he's done?"

"I'm going to tell her."

"Not yet, babe. You can't let her know about this now. We'll find a time to tell her at the christening."

"I apologise for interrupting," Walter speaks up suddenly and waits for them to turn towards him. "If I may say so, I believe she already knows about this."

"Wha—" Daniels' voice is rasp as if her breath is snatched out of her lungs in that one syllable.

"I can trace her moving between decks and hex-rooms in the same pattern of movement as her husband's from the camera monitors. I can gather that she was… _spying_ on her husband."

Captain Branson thinks on that for a while. "Walter, could you please bring her to us?"

"Certainly, Captain. On my way," Walter nods before walking off immediately.

But the Synthetic could still hear them, especially as Daniels asks her husband, "What are you trying to do? You do know they just got married like six months ago, right?"

"Dani, please. I don't want to think that this kid is going to be divorcing his wife off-planet like we'd need this family saga in space!"

"You're forgetting something else too," Erika's voice joins them and at this, Walter pauses by the closed door, listening. "If he does end up doing it off-planet, theirs will be the first divorce completed in space."

"The nerve of that British _smug_!" Daniels growls, thumping something – possibly her small fist – against the edge of the table. Erika doesn't scold her, though.

Jacob takes in a deep breath. "I want to know… No, I _need_ to know if he's been planning this from the beginning."

"I know what you mean. If I'd known, I wouldn't have approved," Erika sounds dejected.

Then it's the Captain's wife who sighs this time. "Let's just ask Aine. I want to hear what she's got to say and—"

Walter stops listening and start walking along the corridor of one of the ship's many hull.

Before he starts his search though, he pauses for a moment by the exit way where he spots Julian arguing with Rowena through a small lookout window. He watches them for a while—frowning when Julian suddenly begins to play with her hands and kiss her cheeks. They walk off together as if that fight never happened and that makes Walter's frown tighten.

"What a _fucking_ weird couple," he murmurs.

 ** _Author's Notes:_ **_I have been meaning to explore this scene... Did I get Captain Branson and Daniels right? I feel like I might've captured the actors as opposed to the character (I so can imagine James Franco saying some of the lines here!)._

 _Also, if you're surprised that Walter is cussing I'm kind of inspired by the original script of the movie, where he is more informal in private (and with the ship's AI); he even called MU-TH-R a 'bitch' lol I'm trying to explore the nature of a Synthetic's duplicity here and as well as whether they develop their opinions with or without thinking. I think Walter could potentially be omnipotent in a way that he actually studies people around him through all available data (especially via the internet). I figured that would be interesting!_

 _I'm tired. I've been writing and uploading through my phone. So would appreciate a good heads up, guys. Let me know what you think! Time to update my Naruto fanfic! :)_

 _June 7 - Final edits included! Yay! Up for the next chapter, anyone? lol I may update my Naruto fanfic this weekend and do another double-chapter update for this fic the week after! :D_


	5. 1-3 Necessary Intent

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.

 **The Captor, the Captive and the Captivated  
** 1-3: Necessary Intent

Walter is intrigued, now.

He was curious at first to know that Mr Hastings was listed as _'independent'_ , despite the Company's mandatory requirement that every crew member must be married and accompanied by their partner. It was even more peculiar when he found out that Mr Hastings' wife, Aine Darcy, was the daughter of _the_ infamous biologist turned conservationist Corinne Darcy whose breakthrough invention was being installed on this ship. But his circuits and programming stumbled into an odd, baffling and inexplicable element of facts when he then figured out that she wasn't here to board the Covenant with her husband at all.

Of course, this _incident_ explains plenty of things. For one thing, it explains why Walter wasn't able to track her movements from London to Arizona—Mr Hastings has been travelling entirely on his own all this time and this also explains the frequency of his travels here. For another, it seems to explain her sudden presence in this facility.

Walter deliberates upon that; she wasn't required to be here at all and she sure enough doesn't need to prepare her body for deep space travel. Every details of the machine her mother invented – with its blueprints and inner workings (all the manuals, instructions and emergency guidelines) – have all been submitted into the Company's systems, thereby rendering it accessible to anyone within the Company _and_ the crew themselves (in short, Walter's databank). She could've sent someone she trusts (and apparently he could tell from her organisation's website and social media that there's a number of potential scientists to choose from) to make sure that her machine is being installed correctly and thus will be working properly for this ship.

And yet, here she is.

He pauses mid-way through the ship's belly as five workers begin shouting at him to make way for them. They were carrying a load that looked a little like a steel coffin (a part of the cryopod)—why couldn't they have some Synthetics to do it? Sometimes, the things these humans do doesn't make much logic to him. He makes a mental reminder to double check that all equipments are properly bolted into place later, considering how manual labour will strain the workers. Then he proceeds to walk through the hexagon shaped decks and make his way deeper into the large ship.

Walter now wonders just how long Aine Darcy knew about her husband's affair. Although this may breach some privacy, he has full authority to do so in the name of the Company.

So he begins to study Mr Hastings more thoroughly; he went through his social media, his family business' websites, his mother's social media, his sister's, his father's—he could even traced back Mr Hastings' high school and preschool websites. Nearly in all these media, he could spot Miss Miller in it. Walter couldn't even trace Aine Darcy's presence in his life until he tracked down Oxford University's social media; there are numerous videos of its students going through bars in town and Aine Darcy is one of them. Walter watches several of these videos at the same time as he continues to dig up more of the man's unsavoury histories.

He learns that Miss Miller is also Mr Hastings' best friend and according to the norms of social conventions, that would lead to catastrophes for a married man—well, a _happily_ married man, that is. He learns that Mr Hastings doesn't even believe in the institution of marriage and the man confesses this to the camera in a video prior to his marriage (believe to have been recorded by his best man). Walter also learns that Miss Miller used to 'date' Mr Hastings and they've made several sex films for their own enjoyment; he finds that Mr Hastings frequently viewed this videos of late (especially whenever he was in London) and that's when Walter finds another interesting development.

He could further trace secret messages in several email accounts and chat room discussions between Mr Hastings and Miss Miller. Some of these messages – especially older ones – are perfectly innocent—just two friends reconnecting once in a while (Miss Miller has been away in Africa for work). Most of the recent ones were intimate and highly sexual—Walter figures it was what humans considered to be 'sexting'. But before Mr Hastings even knew that she was selected for the Covenant, he has been working closely with Aine Darcy and develop a physical relationship with her (at least that's what the cameras at her apartment shows). And there were text messages going between Mr Hastings and Aine Darcy about the 'things' he left at her residence too—all of this prior to their marriage. Mr Hastings had even bragged about his sexual endeavours with her to his friends as well.

Walter couldn't tell if there had been any mutual feelings at all between this husband and wife couple or if their marriage was only as physical as the paper that legitimates their lives together. He's even more surprised that it was she who proposed and no one else knew about that except for her mother.

Now he's really drawn to finding out more about her.

"Hey, you!"

He turns his head to the direction of that voice, but looks down to find a man – a technician no doubt – hidden underneath a metal plank.

"Where do you think you're going? That's a restricted area!"

"Security Code 31564-F. I'm part of the crew and I've been sent by the Captain to inspect this area," not that the man could validate that, anyway.

Walter notes the man's reaction to his little lie—it seems to be working.

"Damn, sorry 'bout that, man! I've got to keep an eye on the comings and goings here!"

He doesn't find the need to respond to that.

"Just make sure you don't break anything in there, alright? I've already got that Sugimoto bitch so far up my ass that I can't even shit properly!"

"Understood," Walter gives off a bland smile; he wonders if he should tell Miss Sugimoto about this man—not only about the name-calling, but also the fact he seems to be too trustworthy with anyone with a code. Still, he resolves to keeping it a secret for now.

It's still a long walk there, so he starts his research into Mr Hastings' _strange_ wife.

She was born on 27th November in 2071 and is an only child. Her mother was very close to her grandmother, a writer by the name of Ailish Liesl Darcy, and that's where she got the L in her middle name from—he finds this out through a home film on the cloud storage of her phone (Company policy requires the confiscation of all digital devices). In fact, he could trace her history from pretty much anytime of her life; she went to school in Bristol and was a quiet, accomplished child; her grades dipped a little until she moved away to London with her grandmother; she started pursuing science and joined several youth science fairs promoting invention and innovation; then she was accepted into Oxford at the age of 16 (as most scientists under the Company would normally be); and during her years in college, she shared a room with Miss Erika Sugimoto for a year.

Walter proceeds to watch several videos in which the two roommates actually spends time rehearsing questions and answers on biology—Aine comes across as such a studious young woman, so he wonders why she would end up with someone so boisterous and loud like her husband. Aine didn't seem to hang around with his friends (or anyone much), but she wouldn't have met him had she not joined Erika for a night out. He finds more videos and they seem very typical to brush off except for a particularly interesting one.

In this video, the boys were filming themselves drinking several shots of whiskey. The focus strays intermittently from the boys and then onto the girls who joined them with the boys hooting loudly when it did. In the background, Walter finds two people talking that he never had seen together before. He edits the video to tone down the foreground noise, increasing the backdrop sound instead and proceeds to play it in his head.

 _"If I'm not mistaken, your family has several charities in Africa,"_ Aine is speaking clearly—she has a drink in her hand that doesn't seem like her first, but somehow she looks like she was still sober than the rest.

The blonde haired woman was none other than Miss Miller herself; she has flushed cheeks and narrow eyes. As she nods, her hand, which was carrying a margarita, almost tips over. _"'s'right. I was born in Mali, you know?"_

 _"And do you still go there often?"_

 _"Only every time!"_

 _"Interesting. So now you're pursuing Journalism to help your parents in a way, I guess?"_

 _"Is it that obvious, Aine?"_ Miss Miller laughs and finishes her drink in one fell swoop. She takes a while to process her own words before replying, _"That's how they want me to_ maintain _the family legacy."_

 _"And what legacy is that?"_

 _"Oh, you know, change the world. Save the world."_

Aine was silent for a while, watching the boys throwing fits of laughter at each other. _"I don't believe one can simply save the world."_

 _"Hm, why's that?"_

 _"My grandmother has taught me that—"_

 _"Oh, your grandmother's_ the _A.L. Darcy, right? I_ loved _her books! Her 'Ode to the Universe' series was my favourite!"_

 _"—it's mine too."_

 _"Oh, my God! What was she like as a grandmother?"_

 _"Well, for one thing, she's taught me that you must always give way to others and listen to them."_

That makes Walter smile, but he notices that Miss Miller was far too drunk to realise the insult.

 _"And she's taught me that if you can't change the world, you have to change how you choose to see it. And if you try to change it anyway, you must be prepared to change yourself. Because the world can't be changed from the bottom up, but from the top down!"_ Aine was yelling now that the music was turned up and she looked disappointed when Miss Miller got up to dance with over five boys.

Erika joined her side. _"If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were flirting with Rowena."_

 _"She's not my type!"_

 _"Pretty sure blonde and blue eyed checked your list!"_

 _"Shut up, Erika!"_

 _"Hey, you're not drinking enough! The finals are over! Please have some semblance of fun tonight!"_

 _"This is my_ tenth _drink."_

Erika stops for a moment. _"Are you a Synthetic that looks just like my roommate or something? Because I'm pretty sure—"_

 _"Don't worry. I only get drunk on my fifteenth glass."_

 _"Can I have your superpower?"_

 _"Can I have yours?"_ Aine smiled shyly. _"I'm not used to a social scene like this… You're definitely better at it than I am!"_

At this stage, the video focused more on Miss Miller as she makes sultry dances against any male bodies she found rubbing up against her. Aine joined the dance floor soon afterwards, although she seemed uncomfortable when one of the boys moved too close. But at the end of the video, Mr Hastings jumps into her rescue when the boy started to do things she didn't agree on and she rewards him a drunken kiss—Miss Miller was in the background, watching them intently.

Despite the intense partying, all these students graduated First Class Honours for their degrees and left Oxford to pursue careers in their family business—perhaps what was the only commonality between Mr Hastings and his wife was that they both continued to study. Mr Hastings gained his Doctorate in geology (with a focus on interplanetary terraforming) at the same time that Aine obtains two Doctorates (in ecology and zoology) concurrently. They were very close during those 3 years of their lives that one would naturally assume this was how they must've ended up together.

Once again though, Walter finds another fascinating fact.

Judging from all the available personal data on Aine Darcy, it seems she was very close to her grandmother. Yet somehow she pursues an education in her mother's spectrum instead; he would think that being mentored by an experienced writer would encourage Aine to pursue creative writing, but for some reason she chose to _maintain_ her mother's legacy. He contemplates if that conversation with Miss Miller (including that insult she threw at her) was in fact due to jealousy (perhaps because she wanted to become a writer herself and was envious of Miss Miller for that).

Walter reviews her history again and suddenly realises that he made a trivial error—he overlooked a chunk of time where she was handed to her father after the divorce. Her parents divorced in June 2075 and her father was given full-custody because the nature of her mother's at the time wouldn't encourage a nurturing household. Yet, for some reason, between then and early 2077, Aine Darcy was off the grid—only after her father's arrest did she resurfaced. Now Walter is mortified by his own curiosity.

He couldn't help himself at this point—he had to find out what kind of crime her father committed, just in case it should reflect badly on her or the Company for working with her. After all, it didn't make sense to him that the Company would choose to work with her, if anyone in her family had a criminal past.

Unless, of course, _she_ was the victim.

He resumes his walk into the garden; it was one of the first parts of the ship that were completed within half a year (that, the cargo bay and the engine core). The garden is a large hall with an artificial biosphere housing various plants, cultivated and due to be assimilated on Origae-6. By the time he reaches a sealed court document and police statement form, he faces a door in his way. There's a screen at the side which shows that the current temperature of the whole garden – over -10 degrees Celsius – and he decides to wear his hood up just in case it gets to him.

Upon entering, he searches for any sign or shape of human form—if she had been in deeper parts of the room, she might be getting too cold for comfort by now. He contemplates calling out her name whilst at the same time attempting to infiltrate the UK government's secure servers.

"Mrs Hastings!" he hears a loud thud as soon as he's finished; he walks further into the hall and follows the sound. "Mrs Hastings!"

He spots a figure stirring at the back; she raises her hand and waves. "Right here!"

Walter quickens his steps—did he mishear her? She sounded in distress and her nose was blocked as if she had been crying. But then again, it might just be the cold.

He winds up at the much warmer climate area where plants of the mostly tropical and desert family are located. He wonders the significance as he gets closer; the plantation unit she was leaning against had several interesting cactus flowers and he makes a note of each one of them so he could ask her about it later.

He's surprised to find her sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and she doesn't even turn to look at all.

"Mrs Hastings," he greets her but still, she refuses to turn around. "Am I interrupting?"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I should ask you the same thing!" she glances up to him with a smile this time and quickly does something to her face with her hand—he knew what she was doing, though. "Am _I_ interrupting you?"

He takes this moment to examine her full physical form.

She wasn't exactly tall or petite—her height was just right. She has flowing dark hair tied to a perfect high ponytail and there's semblance of Asian features on her face. The fringe on her forehead has fallen around her face, wrapping it up nicely like a blanket of the night sky around a pale moon. Her eyes were reddened; they were large too, but almond shaped like a leaf and she had just enough eyebrows to be distinctively English. Something about her eyes reminds him that of puppies'—maybe it was the way it gleams in an almost mahogany colour or maybe it was his facial identification software telling him that she was brown eyed. Yet her eyes at this angle looked hollow, black and rigid like the centre of black holes themselves.

If it weren't for those poppy pink lips, she looks a little too pale, ill and sombre. Was it the cold, the crying or just the overwhelming stress? Still, she was wearing the right clothes—she was dressed head to toe in wool with a hooded jacket on top her jumpsuit. He thinks her hundreds of facial muscles must be working hard too because each part of her face lights up when she smiles—almost painfully. He thinks the crying may've left her muscles swollen so much that she couldn't keep her smile firm for long enough. Walter decides that she does indeed have a somewhat pleasant countenance overall.

"No, you're not," he slurs his answer, disturbed now by his ineffective attempt to hack into the servers. His eyes flit towards her hand where she grips tightly upon a pair of garden shears—what did she intend to do with that?

"Ah, you're thinking why I have these shears, yes?" she raises an eyebrow playfully and sets the said item on the steel floor. "I was a little angry and frustrated earlier… more than I had anticipated. So I thought I could _chop_ something off."

Walter opens his mouth, but takes his words back before he even mentions them; he wanted to ask whether she was aiming for her husband's head or his genitals. But he didn't want to seem sudden or rude, especially since she had a stressful day (and he wasn't supposed to know about it, too).

"I suppose I'm not capable of that level of violence after all," she adds on with a sigh.

"Do you need a hand?" he asks when she struggles to pick herself up by leaning against one of the plantation machines and she's recklessly holding the shears in her hand, too. He's afraid of the possibilities for accidents.

"Yes, please, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he reaches out and catches her hand in his, pulling her up; he was about to say his signature ' _I'm here to serve_ ' line, but then he wanted to see if she could tell he was a Synthetic at all.

"Well, if I'm not interrupting you, then _what_ are you here for?"

He assumes she thought that he was a gardener. "Actually, I came here to get you."

"Oh—"

"Captain Branson has asked me to. He's waiting for you at the cockpit."

"You mean, the bridge, right?"

He smiles.

"I have an inkling why he wants to see me," she narrows her eyes as if saddened by something.

"He needs to speak to you about an urgent matter."

"I feel I may… also need to tell him something, too."

"Here, let me have that," Walter reaches out for the shears and takes it out of her hands—he spots her fingers trembling against his own and that tickles a bit. "Best stow this away before one of us hurt ourselves!"

She quietly nods.

Walter feels her eyes following him, but he thinks it's only fair to allow her that much freedom considering he was doing the same to her earlier. He proceeds to head to the side of the room, where most of the storage area has been tucked away behind metallic walls and cryptic buttons. He presses several of these buttons and a large, vertical section of the wall opens forward. He notices that this wasn't the correct storage (as it still has its garden shears unit), but he stows it in there anyway.

"Which line are you?" she poses the question much like one would hold a gun.

He freezes for a moment before pushing the storage back in. "I'm sorry?"

"You must be new. You're much too… _technical_ to be a David 8 unit."

He turns towards her, trying to find hints on her face that might explain just how fast she figured him out. His mind strays a little to that information—does the fact about David 8s have anything to do with her _type_?

"How did you know?" he finds himself asking—everything he's been doing online is now paused.

"It's in the way you all move."

"Excuse me?"

She laughs aloud. "My grandmother loves Synthetics more than I ever expected anyone of her century and thinking would…"

"But how could—"

"There is _functionality_ in the way you move. It's as if there's purpose to everything that you do and say."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, _really_. Now will you tell me which line are you?"

"I'm called Walter, the first of our newest line."

"I'm guessing you're a little more _technical_ because of what's happened with the notorious David 8 units?"

"Something like that… Do you prefer the previous models?"

She gives him a strange smile—if he didn't know better, it was flirtatious. Unfortunately, he does know better and that smile was indeed flirtatious. Does this have anything to do with David 8 units? Perhaps she kept one. Perhaps _it_ looked like her type.

"Actually," she chuckles, "My grandmother changes her Synthetics models much like most people in the 21st century change phones! She thinks it's challenging to the human minds _to detect the obscure form the obvious_ , so she always pushes me into the same way of thinking… To be honest, _any_ Synthetic intrigues me—they have their own quirks."

"There are several types of Walter models, so we should all have the same quirks."

"No, Walter, unfortunately for me, there's only one of you that should matter more than the rest."

Walter raises an eyebrow.

" _You_."

He shrugs. "There are many of us and all of us are essentially the same."

"True, but the interaction between you and I is stored deeply into only one organic network artificial neurons—which is _yours_."

He pauses to wonder how she could speak like that.

"Erika Sugimoto studies nano-biology at Oxford University and she was my roommate during the time that she's there—I'm sure _you_ already know this! She's so passionate about nanotech that she wanted to create ones that could interact organically between one another thereby forming its own synapses and neural networks. She's achieved that in a relatively short period of time—it's no wonder she was sent to spearhead the Artificial and Synthetic Intelligence division at Yutani during her internship there!"

He says nothing, just admiring at the way she fires up. He can only imagine how her brain might look like under an MRI scan right now.

"It's how I know so much about Synthetics too… and my grandmother plays a huge part, of course! She finds them fascinating and I had to ask Erika some questions for her book's research!"

Walter nods. "Yes, I see that her _Ode to the Universe_ series is still being sold off today."

"Classic colonisation sci-fi—apt for this ship, don't you think?"

He nods. "Yes, it is. But I guess you'd also keep a Synthetic for yourself to know so much?"

"Unfortunately, _no_! My mother doesn't fancy them at all—so I avoid having them around at my own place."

He was about to ask her regarding her relationship with her mother and grandmother when she starts walking off towards the end of the hall.

She turns around, "Aren't you coming, Walter?"

"On my way," he quips as he takes his first step; when he joins her side, he feels compelled for another question. "Do you mind if I asked… how do you know where you're going?"

She smirks. "What?"

"This is the fastest way to the cockpit. I'm wondering how you would know that at all."

"I've made my own mind map by memorising all the main stations in this ships. I created landmarks out of certain places and used it as a guide for certain headings."

He stares her at in disbelief. "I'm surprised you'd want to memorise at all."

"Like I said, _my mother._ She never stops urging me to… _use_ my brain cells. She even used to call me _the_ pathfinder!"

Walter holds back a wider smile at that.

As they walk together, side by side, their footsteps make a booming metallic noise across every lengthy decks and halls. It's gotten on his nerves (or at least it felt that way) that this silence bears his secret and the guilt (or was it fear?) of being caught rolled into his _consciousness_ as more time passes by—this _annoying_ sound was like the soundtrack to his illicit vice of privacy invasion. Still, he has the right to do whatever he so pleases with the data that nearly everyone here has given up upon signing the NDA and entrance into this facility. So he will continue trying his best to research Aine Darcy's mysterious past and find out why almost 2 years of her life was missing from records—whatever means necessary.

Walter finds himself watching her; she has a strange pace – not limping – but she seems to drag her feet for a nanosecond before raising them as she walks. Her gait is almost shifty as if she phases through the corridor with her back against the walls—no one should know she was coming. She's trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and perhaps just like Walter, this loud echo was getting to her too.

Nevertheless, he was going to find out why she has to be so inconspicuous in the first place.

He now attempts his third try to hack into the secure servers. He hopes that he gains entry this time and that will end this bizzare _fog_ that's clouding up his proper mental state, but what will he do in the meantime? Perhaps the quickest way to get to know her is to ask her straight on. But would she appreciate his gesture as rude, intrusive or even _creepy_? He was designed to be more attentive and attune to human emotions, even though he may not be able to fully emulate it. And he was programmed to ensure that he is capable of giving trust as well as receiving it.

What he's done so far has been quite the opposite. Not to mention, she is not officially a crew of the Covenant—another error. He's so caught up in the puzzle that is Aine Darcy's life that he forgot (no, dismissed) that important element. How will he look now if she'd known what he's been doing?

"Mrs Hastings," he murmurs almost reluctantly, "Do you mind if I asked you a _personal_ question?"

She's eager; her face lights up once more when she glances over her shoulder before shaking her head. "Sure! By all means, Walter!"

"Why did you visit that particular set of cactus flowers when they're not even in bloom yet?"

She stops walking, but doesn't turn around or speak.

Walter begins to regret ever asking her that question. He had perfectly pose the question without sounding too invasive and yet it was innocuous enough to have been derived from pure curiosity—she must think that he has plenty of that, considering what he is. Or perhaps curiosity can really kill the cat. Whatever it is, Walter thinks he's about to find out.

He's already gotten past the server's firewall. He's downloaded the file. All that's left is to read it. And read her.

 _ **Author's Notes:** I was half-way through my Naruto fanfic update and I got this scene appearing into my head. It's gotten longer than I imagined (as ALWAYS!) but it makes sense. lol_

 _*The Company - as you Aliens fans know, it's Weyland-Yutani. I thought it would great to see Walter refer it as "The Company" just like that._

 _*David 8 - oh yeah, plot's thickening on that one._

 _Did I get Walter right? lol If you enjoyed this please follow, fav and leave me a small review! Much appreciated!_

 _**MIGHT EDIT THIS LATER I DUNNO_


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